went on: "All the same, I shall be a happy man when--my wife--comes
home."

Lindsay's face cleared. This was satisfactory and proper; there was no
more to be said about it. She looked up with a smile to where the old
butler beamed upon her for her youth and beauty and her accent and her
name.

A handful of busy men left the Capitol in some annoyance that morning
because the Governor had telephoned that he could not be there before
half past eleven. They would have been more annoyed, perhaps, if they
had seen him dashing about the station light-heartedly just before the
eleven-o'clock train for Bristol left. They said to each other: "It must
be a matter of importance that keeps him. Governor Rudd almost never
throws over an appointment. He has been working like the devil over that
street-railway franchise case; probably it's that."

And the Governor stood by a chair in a parlor-car, his world cleared of
street railways and indictments and their class as if they had never
been, and in his hand was a small white oblong box tied with a tinsel
cord.

"Good-by," he said, "but remember I'm to be asked down for the garden
party next week, and I'm coming."

"I certainly won't forget. And I reckon I'd better not try to thank you
for--Oh, thank you! I thought that looked like candy. And bring Mrs.
Rudd with you next week. I want to see her. And--Oh, get off, please;
it's moving. Good-by, good-by."

And to the mighty music of a slow-clanging bell and the treble of
escaping steam and the deep-rolling accompaniment of powerful wheels the
Governor escaped to the platform, and the capital city of that sovereign
State was empty--practically empty. He noticed it the moment he turned
his eyes from the disappearing train and moved toward Harper and the
brougham. He also noticed that he had never noticed it before.

A solid citizen, catching a glimpse of the well-known, thoughtful face
through the window of the Executive carriage as it bowled across toward
the Capitol, shook his head. "He works too hard," he said to himself. "A
fine fellow, and young and strong, but the pace is telling. He looks
anxious to-day. I wonder what scheme is revolving in his brain at this
moment."

And at that moment the Governor growled softly to himself. "I've
overdone it," he said. "She's sure to be offended. No one likes to be
taken in. I ought not to have showed her Mrs. Rudd's conservatory; that
was a mistake. She won't let them ask me down; I sha